There are many dishes on the menus of the two restaurants I just reviewed – Omulyovaya Bochka and Chemodan – that most diners will have never encountered before, often prepared with Siberian fish, game meat, or berries. One of the most intriguing, in my opinion, is the bird cherry cake. If unfamiliar with bird cherry […]

Happy Holidays! Looking to stuff your face in style a few more times before the New Year resolutions kick in? Here is a selection of my favorite recipes from this year’s posts, perfect for any special occasion. To get you started, the New Russian Brioche, Herring, and Foie Gras makes for an unexpected and spectacular […]

As seen at the two restaurants discussed in my previous posts, wild game, mushrooms, and berries are three essential ingredients in Siberian cuisine. Quite often, the game meat is prepared as a cutlet – a round or oval patty made of ground meat. There’s a reason for this: while it would be awesome if wild […]

After my post about Omulyovaya Bochka last week, let’s continue our exploration of Siberian cuisine through another Moscow restaurant. Located in the Arbat District, Chemodan (“suitcase” in Russian) is part of the trend of celebrity-owned eateries that arrived in Moscow in the early twenty-tens. If you follow Russian cinema a little, you might remember actor Oleg […]

According to some sources, one of the food trends for 2018 was set to be Arctic cuisine. Scandinavian food has found its place at the center of the food stage for a number of years now, but some food trend forecasting think tanks such as Culinary Tides, maybe in a bid for attention, decided to jump […]

Quite logically, being the first to send a man to space, the Soviet Union invented space food. During his historic flight in 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin ate from toothpaste-style tubes containing servings of puréed meat or chocolate sauce, for example. Shortly after that, Gherman Titov became the first human to experience space sickness, and won the dubious distinction […]

Following my review of Wine & Crab, here’s a recipe inspired by their crab Pozharsky. Traditional Pozharsky cutlets are breaded ground chicken or veal patties (maybe I should publish my own recipe of this traditional Russian dish soon…). The idea here is the same, but the meat is replaced with crab, which results in something closer to […]

Located on Moscow’s Tretyakov Passage, a hyper-central, posh alleyway framed by medieval-looking archways, Wine & Crab is the brainchild of identical twins Sergey and Ivan Berezutskiy, two rising stars of the New Russian restaurant scene, both co-owners and executive chefs. The pair, originally from the Krasnodar region, first gained fame separately, training at different acclaimed restaurants […]

Taking a short break from the Moscow series, I’d like to continue another collection of posts that I’ve been developing little by little each year: the former Yugoslavia grill project. I’ve already created a Croatian pljeskavica last year and a Bosnian ćevapi the year before, so today we’ll try a Serbian pork neck steak. While the classic mixed […]

On the heels of my Voronezh review, here’s my take on the Bulava steak, aka tomahawk. Since I suggested that Voronezh should try creating agenuinely Russian steakhouse not only with the meat it serves, but also in the sides and accompaniments, I figured I should give it a go myself. I can think of many […]